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About NUI Galway

Since 1845, NUI Galway has been sharing the highest quality teaching and research with Ireland and the world. Find out what makes our University so special – from our distinguished history to the latest news and campus developments.

Engineering & Informatics

Dr. David O'Sullivan B.Sc., Dip.Mech.Eng., M.E.D., Ph.D.

Contact Details

Title

Director of Quality

Address

Information TechnologyRoom 410IT BuildingNUI Galway

Telephone:

Ext. 3017

Email:

ei.yawlagiun@navilluso.divad

Biography:

David O'Sullivan (Ph.D.) is researcher and teacher at NUI Galway for over 20 years. He is also Director of Quality where he facilitates management teams with strategic and operational planning, quality management and performance management. David works with industry on new ways of improving innovative capacity and research projects have involved IBM, Ingersoll-Rand, Fujisawa, Hewlett-Packard and Boston Scientific. He also works on research projects with small to medium sized industries and service organisations including hospitals, local government and public services. David has over 100 publications including books - Applying Innovation (Sage); Manufacturing Outsourcing (Springer); Manufacturing Systems Redesign (Prentice-Hall); Reengineering the Enterprise (Chapman & Hall) and; The Handbook of IS Management (Auerbach).

Research Interests

David has researched three related bodies of knowledge - Manufacturing Systems Design
(c.1990-1997), Systems Engineering (c.1997-2003) and Organisational Innovation
(c.2003-present). Research into ‘Manufacturing Systems Design’ began in collaboration
with a local multinational company Thermo King Corporation (TK) and a large
European funded project involving multinationals including Kuka Robotics,
Renault Automation and Siemens. The main objective was to find ways of
radically redesigning the operational characteristics of manufacturing systems
to make them more flexible and efficient.

Research into
‘Systems Engineering’ in 1997 extended concepts for the design of manufacturing
systems to systems of all types including public sector organisations and small
industries. Systems analysis and systems thinking that lay at the foundation of
manufacturing systems design can equally be applied to all types of organisations.
This body of work also extended the application domain of ideas to other
manufacturing companies such as Nortel Networks. Architectures and models
were translated into ‘collaborative design workspaces’ that organisations could
use to manage their systems innovation processes. iTeams was developed during
this period - a pseudo-commercial software prototype of a very early cloud based
collaborative design environment and installed at Nortel and TK and used by
their design teams.

The third body of
knowledge, ‘Organisational Innovation’, began in 2003. A natural extension of research was into large extended enterprises comprising a number
of organisations including suppliers and distributors. Once again industry was
essential for providing requirements and later testing and validating the systems
architectures. Hewlett-Packard and Boston Scientific played a key role here, as
did a number of small to medium sized enterprises such as Eurobus and Sidhean who
volunteered to participate in trials in cooperation with state support agencies
UDARAS and Westbic. Elements of this research have also been translated into
software systems and in particular InnovationChannel.net (now dormant) and
FrameworkX (currently installed in HP). These systems provided living software
platforms for future experimentation and research. More recent translational prototypes include ideasLog.com and PBLearn.com.

Societal Impact

Key impacts from research include a number of text books using in Colleges and Universities, MOOCs with over 8000 students and the learning platform PBLearn.com used by over 2000 teachers and instructors. Other aspects of societal impact include visiting professor at four European Universities, guest talks at a number of professional conferences and seminars and various board and committee appointments.

VinhTuan Thai, Sean O'Riain, Brian Davis (2007) Personalized Question Answering: A Use Case for Business Analysis Proceedings of International Semantic Web Conference; Workshop on Applications and Business Aspects[ARAN Link] [Details]

Ning, K. and Gong, R. and Decker, S. and Chen, Y. and O'sullivan, D. (2007) A context-aware resource recommendation system for business collaboration E-Commerce Technology and the 4th IEEE International Conference on Enterprise Computing, E-Commerce, and E-Services, 2007. CEC/EEE 2007. The 9th IEEE International Conference on , pp.457-460 [Details]

Li, J., O'Sullivan, D. (2004) Semantic Innovation Management Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Electronic Business - Shaping Business Strategy in a Networked World Beijing; China, [Details]

O'Sullivan, D. (2004) A Groupware System for Product Innovation Management Proceedings 9th International Conference in Human and Organisational Issues in the Digital Enterprise Galway, Ireland, [Details]

J.Browne and L.Dooley (1997) Manufacturing Engineer or Architect Proceedings of International Conference on Issues and Challenges of Manufacturing Education Patras, Greece, [Details]

C. Smyth and L.Smyth (1997) Sustaining World Class Manufacturing among Employees Proceedings of the International Conference on Revisiting the Allocation of Functions Issue - New Perspectives Galway, Ireland, [Details]

Teaching Interests

Learning results from the way students perceive and then process what has been perceived. If learning is to be efficient, the student requires practice of four types of learning - concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation. Effective learning requires that these learning skills be brought to bear alternatively on the learning task. My personal approach is summarised in the following list:

Lecturer -> Instructor

Passive Learning -> Active Learning

Implicit Skills -> Explicit Skills

Independent Learning -> Group Learning

Exam Driven -> Knowledge Driven

Rote Learning -> Understanding

Lecturing remains an important means of imparting information to the student. However, when combined with other learning techniques such as projects and group activities it transforms my role from lecturer to instructor. Learning techniques include lectures and various reflection activities. The reflection activities transform traditional passive learning into active learning where students practice and experiment on a practical project. The nature of my research topic makes it easy for me to insert explicit transferrable skills and projects into each module. All module exercises utilise project and group based learning. Knowledge driven learning is achieved by assessing students using a combination of assessment techniques that include open book examination, online activities and completion of a group reports.EndFragment

Learning Outcomes

Understand the main theory and concepts behind the subject matter

Understand how to apply and practice some of the main techniques and methods

Internal Collaborators

Internal collaborators include colleagues from the disciplines of Management, Information Systems, Mechanical Engineering and Adult Learning

External Collaborators

External collaborators are extensive and are mainly reflected in the collaborative research projects undertaken. Long standing collaborators include Chemnitz University Germany, University of Trondheim Norway, University of Minho Portugal, Tsinghua University China, University of Bordeaux France and University College Cork

About NUI Galway

Founded in 1845, we've been inspiring students for 170 years. NUI Galway has earned international recognition as a research led university with a commitment to top quality teaching.

CONTACT

National University of Ireland
Galway,
University Road,
Galway, Ireland
T. +353 91 524411